CHAPTER TWENTY
LANE TEXTED HIM a little after three to let him know that she would be coming with dinner. He wasn’t entirely sure how he felt about that. Yes, she had come before while his brothers were there since the two of them had started sleeping together, but something had changed down at the lake. And as protective as he had felt over their relationship then, he felt even more protective now.
He didn’t want to answer questions. He didn’t want any of his douche bag brothers to have questions. Mostly, he liked it when it was just the two of them. It seemed simple then. At least, as simple as a situation like theirs could be.
But, given their pasts, he wasn’t entirely sure there was anything other than this strange antechamber between friendship and love for people like them.
“Are you daydreaming over there?”
Finn turned at the sound of Cain’s voice. “Do I look like the kind of person that daydreams?”
“You’re doing a damn good impression of one. Thinking about anyone special?”
“You know, Cain, sometimes I’m sad about our childhood. About the fact that the two of us didn’t get to be raised as brothers should be raised together. The fact that we know each other about as well as strangers I pass on the street. Right now is not one of those moments. Right now, frankly, I’m more than pleased that I mostly grew up as an only child.”
“Well, I grew up mostly as an only child too, so I can only guess, but I think that making you hate my very existence means that I’m really killing this big brother thing.”
Finn snorted and wrapped the barbed wire around his hand, his leather work gloves keeping it from piercing his skin.
He had been out repairing fences with Cain all afternoon, and for the most part his brother hadn’t made him want to crawl out of his skin. This was the exception.
“Hey,” Finn said, “I just decided not to kill all of you in your sleep and tell law enforcement it was an unfortunate accident so that I could claim all parts of the ranch back for myself. You might want to tread lightly.”
Cain smiled. “All things considered, I’m not really sure that you’re the one who has the monopoly on brother killing jokes.”
Finn frowned. “Why did they name you that, anyway?”
Cain shrugged. “Hell if I know. Probably my mom’s idea of something different and interesting. Or maybe they figured I was doomed to be an ass from day one. But better Cain than Abel, right?”
“I guess.”
“So what’s your plan?” Cain asked, resting his foot on the bottom rung of the fence and looking out toward the mountains. He tilted his hat back on his head, letting out a long, slow breath. “I mean for your life.”
“Really? Are we having this conversation?”
“I’m curious. My plans go as far as Violet getting into college. And then I’m going to have to work to pay for her to be there, because I don’t think she’s getting any scholarships. She’s a great kid, and I love her, but she’s not exactly interested in applying herself in any exceptional way.”
“Right,” Finn said, “why would she want to? At her age, there’s about a million more interesting things to do.”
Cain grimaced. “Which I also try not to think about. But... I didn’t imagine myself here. On the West Coast. Away from Texas. Raising a kid by myself, who’s barely a kid anymore. I feel fucking old and I’m not even forty.”
“You are pretty fucking old.”
Cain gave him a sideways glance. “Thank you.”
“I assume based on that expression that I’m now doing exactly what a younger brother should do.”
“I suppose,” Cain said, his tone flat. “Anyway, that’s my plan. Two more years and my daughter will be out of the house. I can’t imagine getting married again. Probably won’t be having any more kids. And then what? I think... I think that’s the real reason I wanted to come here. Because everything in my life back in Texas was finished. Or at least, close to being finished. And it was also... Not really mine. It was a life that I built with somebody else. I can’t have that life back. Also, I don’t want it back. But I needed something new. I promise it had nothing to do with ruining your life.” Cain paused, then looked over at Finn, a smile playing at the edges of his lips. “That’s just a bonus.”
“You’re an asshole.”
“That refrain is getting old.” But Cain didn’t really sound like he minded.
“Well, I’m not sure I understand why you’d want to link your hopes and dreams to cows, but if you do, if you want to make this your life, I guess I get it. I can’t really begrudge you that.”
“So what’s your plan?” Cain asked, bracing his hands around the top of the fence. “Cows?”
“Basically.” Finn bent and started collecting his tools, sticking them in the rusted old toolbox his grandfather had probably had since WWII. “Expanding the dairy now. I mean, thanks to Lane.”
“I thought that we inspired you to do that, by our very presence. And also to keep us busy so we kept out of your hair. And to give Liam something to do so he wouldn’t be such a jackass.”
“Liam is past the point of redemption,” Finn said, his tone dry. “But, I mean, you were part of it—the reason I said yes to expanding. The added manpower alone makes it more possible than ever. And, yes, getting you out of my hair can’t be underestimated. But even if that hadn’t been a definite fringe benefit, Lane is pretty damn convincing.”
Cain smiled. “You gonna marry that girl? Because I wouldn’t mind having her around more. I certainly like eating her food.”
Finn shifted uncomfortably. “I’m not really interested in marriage.”
“I’d ask why. But I’m pretty sure I already know.”
“Hey, Alex and Liam had their mother and our father for a little while. You and I don’t even know what a functional relationship looks like.”
Cain nodded slowly. “Yeah. I mean, I sure don’t know what the hell I’m doing. You can see that, given that I torpedoed the one serious relationship I had.”
“You did?”
He spread his hands. “I must have. It was so bad she had to leave her child in order to leave me.”
“I’d offer you some vague reassurance, but I don’t know your life. Maybe it was your fault.”
“I appreciate that.” Weirdly, he sounded like he meant it.
For a second, Finn let himself think about it. Marrying Lane. Not just that hazy fantasy of having her in his home, but having her with him as his wife. There was definite appeal to that. He couldn’t lie. But he’d seen relationships break down. He’d seen what abandonment looked like. Had felt it too deep. Enough that he couldn’t imagine taking a step like that, one that offered some kind of false assurance of permanence when he wasn’t sure such a thing could exist for him. “It’s not like that,” he said. “I mean, between Lane and me.”
“It looked plenty like that to me when I walked in on you the other day.”
“I’m sleeping with her,” he conceded, not seeing the point in being evasive about it anymore. “But, she’s got some stuff. She doesn’t want to get married. She doesn’t want to have kids. I don’t either. I have long considered that a personal goal,” he said drily, “not fathering any kids out of wedlock. Not leaving a string of abandoned people in my wake. It’s just better to... To stay away from that stuff. I don’t see why things can’t keep going the way that they are with her. We have a good thing.”
“I need that thing,” Cain said, bending down and picking up a hammer. “Because another marriage sounds like an invitation to hell as far as I’m concerned. But damn, I miss women.”
“Find one.”
“I’m raising a kid,” he said. “I barely have time to turn around. Much less find somebody to sleep with. I’m certainly not bringing anybody back to the house.”
“If you wanted to spend the night away, there are plenty of people there to take keep an eye on Violet.”
Cain let out a ragged sigh and Finn had a feeling that—for some reason—he was being a little too pragmatic for his brother. “Well, she’ll be gone in two years anyway.” He didn’t sound particularly happy about that, though.
He looked at Cain, and he saw even more reasons to avoid that kind of entanglement. Hell, Cain had gotten married. And then it had all blown up. He had a kid, and now that kid was getting ready to leave him too. And Finn saw the way they interacted with each other. Saw how difficult she was.
Finn had already had a lifetime of people walking away. He didn’t think he could sign on for a wife and kids, only to watch them do the same.
“Hey,” he said, “Lane is bringing food tonight, so if you can’t enjoy the other pleasures of having a woman, you can eat my woman’s food.”
Cain laughed. “That, I will take. Your woman, huh?”
Finn frowned. “Well, yeah. But it’s not like that.”
“Okay,” Cain said, bringing the hammer back down on a nail.
“It’s not.”
“I said okay.”
Out of everything Cain had said in that conversation, maybe the truest thing was that Finn mostly wanted to kill him. And that older brothers were supposed to make you crazy.
If there was anything else Finn had learned today, it was that he never wanted to feel the depth of the loneliness that his brother seemed to feel. When he saw that stark, hollow expression on Cain’s face, it was way too close to a darkness he’d experienced before and he’d be damned if he tempted it again.
No, what he and Lane had was good. He had always wanted her, and now he had her. She had broken down her walls for him. Had given him some of the burden, and he was damn glad of it.
Sharing with Cain hadn’t been so bad either. And maybe, just maybe, dinner would go more smoothly than he’d hoped.
* * *
HIS HOME WAS NOISY, and the weird thing was, it didn’t even bother him that much. Even Violet had come downstairs for dinner. Alex was giving everyone a hard time, because that’s what he did, Liam was nursing a beer and Cain was sitting in easy silence.
Lane, of course, was making conversation. A lot of it ridiculous, because that’s what she did when she was full of energy. Nerves or energy and you could pretty much count on strange things coming out of Lane’s mouth. He liked that, he realized. It was one of the big things he liked about her.
His grandfather had been steady, but taciturn. He had never been one to waste words. Lane wasted them with a particular sort of glee that he found endearing. Always had. This home, the home that now had noise filtering up to the rafters, had always been quiet. Except when Lane had come over.
Even Callum Donnelly had been powerless to resist her charm. And it turned out she had the same effect on every Donnelly.
Or maybe it was on everyone.
That effortless allure was all the more impressive given what he knew about her past now. He had always thought she was amazing, but he’d had no idea she was carrying around something quite so heavy.
It made her lightness seem like a feat of magic.
“I brought dessert too,” she told the group now, smiling. “But I didn’t make it. Alison, who is Violet’s new boss, makes the best pie ever.” Lane took a pastry box out of the fridge and set it down on the kitchen island. She lifted the lid slowly, an expression that looked not unlike one she made when he kissed her neck crossing her face. “Lemon meringue. And it’s going to be so good.”
“My favorite.” Cain stood and made his way over to the counter, plate in hand. “Are you going to learn how to do this, Violet?”
“If I do,” she said, taking her plate over to the pie box too, “then I’m going to charge you the going rate. Whatever Alison pays me an hour, you’re going to have to pay too.”
“If you do that, I’m going to send you a bill for the expenses of raising you.” Lane deposited a large slice of pie onto Cain’s plate, and he went back to sit down.
Suddenly, Finn didn’t feel much like eating pie. Mostly, he just wanted to watch her, and he couldn’t quite pin down why. There was something about having her here. In his kitchen, where she had been a million times before. Just a few weeks ago her presence had made him mad. Because it felt like a window into something they didn’t actually have, something that he had wanted to a degree.
This was starting to feel like it was more than want. It was starting to move into need. And he didn’t want that. Didn’t want to need anyone.
He liked her needing him. And maybe that was hypocritical, but he didn’t see anything wrong with it. It meant that he was giving her something, after all.
She looked up, and her eyes met his. Then her cheeks turned pink, and she looked back down at the pie, serving up a piece for Liam, and another for Alex. She lifted her thumb to her lips, her tongue sliding over her skin, picking up a little bit of meringue.
Arousal hit him, low and swift in the gut. And that was a much more comfortable feeling than what he had been grappling with before.
He stole a quick glance at his brothers, annoyed at the thought that they had seen that too. That unconscious move that seemed completely sexual to him. They seemed oblivious to it.
Lane moved away from the pie to where he was. She lifted her hand and pressed her palm against his shoulder, sliding it to the middle of his back, then returning it to his shoulder. Very much a nonfriend kind of touch. Something that people in relationships did.
“Are you going to have pie?”
“Probably not,” he said, extremely conscious of her hand still pressed against his shoulder.
“There’s plenty.”
“I have a feeling that Cain is going to finish it off.”
She looked over at Cain, then back to Finn. “Well, he better not. Because I want some.”
“Why don’t you sit down?”
“Really?”
“Yes, Lane. Let me bring you pie.”
She smiled at him, then went to sit at the table, at a spot with an empty chair next to her. He cut her a piece of pie, then set it in front of her, before taking that spot right beside her.
He let her talk. Let everyone else talk while they ate. Then, underneath the table, he felt light fingertips against his thigh. Everything in his body hardened, his arousal hot and uncontrolled. Like wildfire.
She moved her hand down to his knee, then back up again. It was strange, this kind of interaction with her. He was used to friendship. And now, being naked. But with her dropping touches against his skin as casually as she spoke, it was blending into something else. Bridging this gap between friends and lovers.
She moved her hand once more, and her fingertips connected with his. She paused for a moment. Then laced her fingers through his. She squeezed him tight, drawing his hand over to her lap. She looked up at him, something bashful in her expression that made his stomach squeeze.
She looked almost more nervous to be holding hands than she had been to get naked in front of him. He felt like something jagged had hit him in the heart, slid right underneath his defenses and gone deep.
“Thank you,” she said, her tone as muted as her expression. “For the pie.”
“Sure,” he said, “you worked hard all day too. You deserve to have somebody take care of you.” He meant it. And that was what he wanted to do. It was one of the few things he didn’t doubt at all.
“Who takes care of you?”
“You do,” he said simply, squeezing her hand gently.
That seemed to satisfy her, at least to a degree.
Everyone insisted that Lane stay seated during cleanup. All the men helped with dishes and putting away the food, and then slowly, his brothers filtered into the living room, and Violet went back upstairs to her more comfortable solitude.
That left just Lane and himself in the kitchen. Finn rested his palms flat on the countertop, looking at Lane, who was still sitting at the table. She stood, making her way slowly across the room, placing her fingertips lightly over the tops of his hands and looking at him, a kind of dreamy smile on her face.
Suddenly, he was seized by the fierce desire to kiss her. To take them straight out of this gray area and into something a little bit hotter. A little bit more certain. So he did.